


Learn from the Wreck

by thepartyresponsible



Series: Learn from the Wreck [2]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe, Circus Performer Clint Barton, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-18 05:58:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14847101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepartyresponsible/pseuds/thepartyresponsible
Summary: This was such a stupid idea. This was hisworstidea, aside from maybe turning against Jacques. But he’s committed now. If he’s going to burn bridges, he might as well make sure they burn to the rebar.“It’s Clint,” he says. Several long beats slip by with no reply, so he clears his throat. “Hawkeye? We met at the circus. A couple years ago. You drank a lot, so I don’t know—and it was just a couple weeks, so maybe you don’t remember, but. We did. Meet, I mean.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the sequel to [Try to Freeze Time](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14661159). Thanks to everyone who patiently waited for this, even though I left the last one on such a sad note.

                Clint’s halfway to the exit when the patient advocate catches up with him. He’s not sure which of the nurses ratted him out, but, if he had any money at all, he’d put it on the motherly nurse, the one who couldn’t go a single sentence without calling him _sweetie_. But he doesn’t have any money – he is, he assumes, several hundreds if not thousands of dollars in debt at this point – so he just gives the beleaguered woman a wave and keeps toddling his way down the hall.

                “Mr. Barton,” she says, as she catches up with him, “I hear you’re trying to break yourself out of here.”

                “Well, warden,” he says, keeping one steadying hand on the wall, “you’re welcome to try to stop me. But I’m feeling pretty spry, so I hope you warmed up first.”

                “Mr. Barton,” she says, earnestly, “you’re holding on to the wall.”

                “I stole some morphine.” He jerks his chin back toward the nurse’s station. “Actually, I stole whatever I could grab. I’m not hurt. I’m just high as hell, is all.”

                She gives him a pinched, worried frown. “If you’re worried about payment--”

                He cuts her off with a laugh. “Ma’am, you’re the ones who should be worried about payment.”

                She sighs and stares at him for a long moment before reluctantly holding a clipboard toward him. “You need to sign this to acknowledge that you’re leaving against medical advice. And you need to wait here until we can get someone to assist you out.”

                Clint doesn’t roll his eyes, because she’s just doing her job, and he’s got no reason to be an asshole to these people. They aren’t the ones who left him to die. None of this is their fault.

                “Sure,” he says, “I will do one of those things. You got a pen?”

 

 

 

                Clint stares at the business card for a long time before he makes the phone call. The card is stained and creased, worn from three years in back pockets and backpacks and wallets. He’s lucky he had it with him, when he fell. It’s not like Barney dropped any of his things off, before he left. Nobody from the circus brought him anything at all.

                Everything he owned has probably been repurposed or trashed by now. His bows, sold or handed off to whatever dumb kid took his place.

                He’s got twenty dollars, a handful of coins, a truly dizzying sum of newly acquired medical debt, and this card. The woman behind the desk is staring at him like she thinks he’s going to run for it, and he has to make the phone call, because, after he tries, he can move on to whatever’s next.

                He thought rock bottom would hurt more than this, but really it doesn’t feel like much at all. The hurt came before. Now he’s just hollowed out.

                He lets his head fall forward, forehead resting against the cold metal of the payphone, while he feeds the machine his quarters and waits for the dial tone. And then slowly, deliberately, like stalling’s going to do him any favors, he punches in the numbers.

                The phone rings for a long time. _He’s not gonna answer_ , Clint thinks. _It’s probably not even his number anymore. Maybe it wasn’t ever his number at all._

                He lets it ring anyway. It’s not like he’s got anything better to do.

                “Okay, listen,” a man’s voice says, suddenly, half-shouting over the loud beat of music that breaks over the line like a slap to the face, “if someone at this hospital is trying to put my name on a birth certificate, I’m gonna need a paternity test first.”

                “What,” Clint says, so legitimately surprised that he can’t even form it into a proper question. The voice doesn’t sound quite like he remembers, but it was years ago, after all, and they didn’t know each other for very long. “Tony?”

                “Yeah, you called me,” Tony says. “Who the hell is this?”

                It’s a strangely friendly kind of aggression, and Clint _does_ remember that. He remembers Tony crawling all over every machine the circus owned. He remembers watching Tony take things apart, remembers the incredulous joy in his voice as he yelled to the head mechanic, _There are bootstraps on these bootstraps, you Goddamn lunatic. Mad Max wouldn’t drive this fucking thing._

                “Yeah,” Clint says. “Um. You probably don’t remember me.”

                “Usually don’t,” Tony confirms, off-hand and casual about it, like somehow that’s supposed to make it hurt less. “But I don’t usually give this number out either, so why don’t you give me a name or a rough physical description, maybe outline whatever minor felonies we might’ve allegedly committed together, and I’ll let you know if it rings any bells.”

                This was such a stupid idea. This was his _worst_ idea, aside from maybe turning against Jacques. But he’s committed now. If he’s going to burn bridges, he might as well make sure they burn to the rebar.

                “It’s Clint,” he says. Several long beats slip by with no reply, so he clears his throat. “Hawkeye? We met at the circus. A couple years ago. You drank a lot, so I don’t know—and it was just a couple weeks, so maybe you don’t remember, but. We did. Meet, I mean. Uh, physical description? I’m…blonde. And---”

                “I remember you.” There’s a series of odd noises, whirrs and mechanical whines, and then the music in the background cuts out. “Why are you calling?”

                “Well. Uh.” He hadn’t really prepared for what to do if Tony _did_ remember him. He knows what he needs to do. Hell, he knows _why_ he’s calling. But he’s never been good at asking for things, and it’s never worked out for him anyway.

                “You’re calling from a hospital,” Tony says. “What happened?”

                Clint closes his eyes. There are a lot of answers to that question. “I fell.”

                _I did something stupid. I tried to help, and I got hurt. Jacques left me to die and Barney did too and now I’ve got no one. I’ve got nothing. I don’t know what to do._

“Okay,” Tony says. “I’m sending a car.”

                “You’re—what?” He’d meant to ask for money. Just enough to get somewhere. Maybe, if he felt like pushing it, enough to get a motel room for a few days, rest up before he tried to find work. He doesn’t know what the hell Tony means by _I’m sending a car_.

                “I’m sending a car,” Tony repeats. “Give me half an hour. Don’t fall again.”

                “Okay,” Clint says, slowly. He lifts his head a little, just far enough to stare at the receiver in his hand, make sure he’s actually still talking into a phone and not just making shit up in his head. “Okay, I can…yeah. I can wait.”

                “Great,” Tony says. “See you soon.”

                “See me—what?” But the call’s done. There’s nothing but a dial tone ringing in his ears. Clint presses his lips together and then slowly moves to hang up the phone.

                It could be a trick, a prank. A quick way to get Clint to go away, stop bothering him. The Tony he’d known hadn’t been cruel, but he’d been reckless, and temperamental. Irresponsible, when he felt like it, which had been pretty damn often, at nineteen.  

                But that’s the only phone number Clint has that goes to anyone who might be able to help him. So if it’s not real, it’s not like he has another option to pursue.

                He limps his way over to the waiting room and settles carefully onto one of the stiff plastic chairs.

                That lady behind the desk is staring at him again. He puts his head in his hands so he doesn’t have to look at her.

 

 

 

                The pain hooks into him fast, once the last of the drugs wear off. He’s more than a little out of it by the time a man shows up, wearing a suit, and peers at him with earnest, inquisitive eyes, and repeats his name three times before Clint remembers that collection of syllables belongs to him.

                “Yeah,” he says, with a heavy exhale. “’s me. I’m Clint Barton.”

                Things smear together a little after that. He remembers a long walk, with steady hands on his shoulders, and then he remembers standing at the foot of a staircase, staring up at the open door of a small plane.

                _Gut-check_ , he thinks.

                He sleeps on the plane. He has to. It’s either sleep or throw up.

                After the plane, there’s another set of stairs – _down_ this time, which is somehow even worse, because now his leg has gone all stiff – and then a smiling chauffeur who helps him crawl into the backseat of a car and then passes him a bottle of pills.

                “Boss said you didn’t have time to fill your prescription,” the man says. “But don’t worry. I picked it up.”

                Clint knows better than to take pills from a bottle that isn’t his, handed to him by a man he doesn’t know. But his body’s woken up to the extent of the damage he’s done to it, and he can’t hold sentences in his head. He thinks, right now, he’d take anything anyone gave him.

                “Supposed to just take one, I think,” the man says, a little dubiously, as Clint fumbles the bottle open and taps a handful into his palm.

                “Okay,” Clint says, and pours all but two of them back into the bottle. He dry swallows both of them, one after the other, and the man grimaces and passes him a bottle of water. Clint forces himself to take a few sips before he has to lay down across the backseat and concentrate on not throwing up.

                “Sorry,” Clint says, at one point. He’s watching the stars through the window and reminding himself, forcefully, that if he throws up his pills, he’s just gonna have to wait even longer for the pain to go away. “Sorry if I puke.”

                “Wouldn’t be the first time,” the man says. “Just hang on a little longer, okay? We’re almost there.”

                “Okay,” Clint says. “Sure.”

                He bites his lip, stitches his mouth shut with his own teeth, tries to keep all the scared, hurt noises in his head from leaking out into the world.  

                He doesn’t know where they’re going. What the hell does it matter? He doesn’t have anywhere to be.

 

 

 

                He has weird dreams, while he’s under. There’s one where Barney just stands right in front of him, nose an inch from Clint’s, and stares at him, without blinking, until Clint thinks maybe he’s crying or maybe _Barney’s_ crying or maybe it’s both of them. Or maybe they aren’t. Maybe neither one of them blinks, or flinches, or cares at all anymore.

                There’s one where he’s shooting arrow after arrow, but they dissolve the second they leave his bow, and nothing hits the target, and a crowd full of people, a world full of people, screams at him that he’s trash, that he always has been, always will be.

                And there’s one where rats are eating him, chewing on his leg and his ribs and scratching up the skin of his arms whenever he tries to pry them loose. He can feel their teeth grating against bone, chipping it, splintering him to pieces, and he can’t make them stop, can’t chase them away, can’t fight them off.

                And then there’s one where Tony Stark shows up to lift him out of the back of a car, and Clint stumbles into him, heavy and numb, can’t coordinate anything.

                “Damn, Happy, did you have to get him this fucked up? This is the kind of thing that makes headlines. ‘Tony Stark lures doped-up blonde into his lair.’ Paparazzi camp out for things like this, c’mon.”

                “Sorry, boss. He was really hurting.”

                “Sorry,” Clint mumbles, mouth pressed into Tony’s shoulder, and then they’re moving again.

                It’s an interesting exercise, walking in dreams. Clint kicks his feet out in front of him, and sometimes they touch the ground, and sometimes they don’t. He feels like a duck, paddling across water.

                “Right, sure,” Tony says, “quack, quack. Fly away home. Got it.”

                “Geese,” Clint says. The texture of the ground has changed from gravel to carpet, and his shoes are gone, somehow.

                “What?” Tony asks. “Talk to me, Goose.”

                “No, _geese_ ,” Clint says. Tony’s doing something to him, moving him around, maybe, and Clint doesn’t care, because it sounds exhausting, trying to care about something like that. “Was geese, in _Fly Away Home_.”

                “Okay,” Tony says. “Sure. You’re the resident bird expert, Hawkeye.”

                “’m not Hawkeye anymore.”

                This dream has been nice, but Clint doesn’t like it anymore. It _hurts_ again, when nothing’s hurt for a while. He leans away from Tony’s hands, settles onto a cloud that envelops him, holds him better than Tony did, anyway.

                “I’m not anything anymore.”

                There’s a pause, and more clouds settle loosely over Clint, wrapping him up. He’s warm, and tired, and floating away again.

                “Sleep it off,” Tony says, and Clint rolls his eyes, because he can’t sleep off a dream. He can’t double-sleep. But his eyes are closed and so maybe Tony doesn’t notice.

 

 

 

                A doctor wakes Clint up at some point, and then there are a couple different nurses, and there’s an IV that Clint pops out of his arm, because he can’t afford things like that, but it just burrows into his other arm when he’s not paying attention, so he gives up. Eventually, it goes away on its own.

                And then, what feels like both days and seconds later, he blinks awake in an unfamiliar room, and he’s aware enough to know how strange that is.

                “What the fuck,” he says.

                “Good morning, Mr. Barton,” the walls say, in a pleasant British accent.

                “What the _fuck_ ,” Clint repeats, pulling the sheets up to his neck, like a startled, pearl-clutching Victorian woman.

                “I’m JARVIS,” the walls say. “Mr. Stark designed me to keep an eye on things around the house.”

                _Mr. Stark_ , Clint thinks. He pauses, looking around. The room he’s in is nicer than any place he’s been in his whole damn life. The curtains alone look like they cost more than everything he owns.

                Well. _Owned_.

                “Where am I?” He’s pretty sure he knows. But he wants to be sure.

                “Mr. Stark’s home,” JARVIS says. “In Malibu.”

                “I was in Virginia,” Clint tells the walls. He can’t imagine JARVIS cares, but he thinks someone should know. “Last I remember, I was in Virginia.”

                “You’ve been unwell.” The robot – _is_ he a robot? What the hell would Clint know about robots, anyway? – sounds somehow concerned, and it should weird Clint out, probably, but it’s nice to have someone care, even if it’s just a computer. “But you’re doing much better now.”

                “Yeah,” Clint says, “I think I can sit up and everything.” He pushes himself up on his elbows and then slowly grapples his way into a sitting position. His ribs ache, but it’s not the fierce, stabbing pain he expects.

                He feels weak and a little dizzy, but his brain is piecing together full thoughts. “How do I get out of here, JARVIS?”

                “I advise against attempting to leave the building, Mr. Barton,” JARVIS says. “You’re still not adequately recovered from your accident.”

                His _accident_.

                Clint swallows. He swings his legs over the side of the bed. He’s wearing black sweatpants and a gray t-shirt that says “Property of Stark Industries.” There’s a cast on his left leg and a weird, clumsy metal boot that’s going to be an absolute bitch to cut his way out of.

                He rubs at his face and then runs his fingers through his greasy hair. His mouth tastes like something’s been rotting between his molars for at least a week.

                “Hey, JARVIS?” he says, as he curls his hands around the edge of the mattress and slowly hauls himself to his feet. “It wasn’t an accident, you know? I didn’t just fall. I got—there was a fight.”

                “Yes,” JARVIS says, “medical analysis suggested you sustained multiple defensive wounds to your hands and forearms. And the bruised ribs are not compatible with a fall.”

                Clint holds himself upright by keeping one hand firmly on the wall. He walks himself toward the nearest door. He’s exhausted by the time he gets close enough to hook his hand around the knob and push it open.

                It leads to a bathroom. He’d been hoping for an exit.

                He sighs, and thinks about being disappointed, but there’s a toothbrush lying on the sink, still in its packaging, surrounded by a neat set of the kind of mini-toiletries you get at hotels, except they look nicer than what he’s used to.

                “Hey, JARVIS?” Clint says, a few minutes later, after he’s brushed his teeth and contorted himself to spit in the sink without setting off his ribs too much. “Did you tell Tony? About the defensive injuries?”

                There’s a pause. Clint grimaces, hurries to correct himself. “I meant,” he says, “Mr. Stark.”

                “Your medical files,” JARVIS says, “are legally protected.”

                “Sure,” Clint says. “But does he know?” There’s another long pause, and Clint rolls his eyes toward the ceiling. “C’mon, JARVIS. The guy’s housing me. I don’t give a fuck if he peeked at my chart.”

                “Yes, Mr. Barton,” JARVIS says, after a beat. “He’s aware.”

                “Okay,” Clint says. He holds a hand-towel under the faucet and then rubs at his face and neck. He should take a proper shower, but he’s drained, just from this. “Thanks for telling me, J.”

                “You’re welcome, Mr. Barton. May I suggest you go back to bed now?”

                “Yeah,” Clint says. “Good idea.”

 

 

 

                The next time Clint wakes up, there’s a bowl of soup on his bedside table, water bottle and pills laid out beside it, and there’s soft music playing that cuts out when Clint stirs.

                “Good morning, Mr. Barton,” JARVIS says.

                “Thanks for the wakeup call, J,” Clint says, as he hauls himself into a sitting position. “Don’t suppose you could wake me up _before_ some stranger ogles me in my sleep?”

                “Mr. Stark didn’t want to wake you,” JARVIS says. “But the soup has begun to cool, and you need to take your medication.”

                “Huh,” Clint says.

                He knocks back the pills before he can think about it. He _knows_ better. He does. It’s just that he doesn’t care very much right now.

                He drains half the bottle of water and then turns his attention to the soup. He’s not hungry, but he knows better than to seem ungrateful.  

                The soup’s in Styrofoam, came with a sealed set of plastic cutlery that Clint doesn’t have the coordination for. It’s not any kind of soup Clint recognizes, savory and warm and spiced with something he doesn’t know enough about to identify. He drinks it more than he eats it, and, afterwards, he sets the bowl back on the table and feels himself slumping slowly against the pillows.

                “Guess Stark can ogle as much as he wants,” he mumbles, into the pillow. “Soup was good, J.”

                “I’m glad to hear it, Mr. Barton.”

 

 

 

                The time after that, Clint decides, if Tony Stark is going to be hand-delivering soup to his bedside, he’d better make a Goddamn effort. No more phoning it in. His charms are limited enough as it is.

                He drains his newest bowl of soup – chicken noodle this time – and takes the pills set out for him, and then he wobbles his way into the bathroom, barely holding onto the wall at all, and digs around under the sink until he finds a trash bag.

                “Mr. Barton,” JARVIS says, “this is ill-advised.”

                “If you take any naked pictures of me, J,” Clint says, as he navigates his way out of his borrowed clothes, “I get a solid cut of the profits, okay? Like, at least ten percent. Gotta pay Tony back for all this somehow.”

                “Perhaps a bath,” JARVIS suggests, as Clint turns on the shower.

                “Nah,” Clint says. “I lay down, I fall asleep, I drown. Tony doesn’t need to explain to the cops how some guy went missing in Virginia and died in his bathroom. That kinda shit can ruin lives.”

                He kicks his way out of the sweatpants and slips his cast into the trash bag. He needs tape, probably, to make it water tight, but he settles on tying it off real tight and hoping for the best. It’s not like he plans to keep the cast for long anyway.

                He steadies himself for a few seconds, checking his balance, and then he steps into the shower. The water is perfect, so hot he can feel the stiff muscles in his shoulders unlocking, and he leans into the cool tile and stands there, struck stupid by how nice it is, for entirely too long.

                The soap in the shower smells fresh, kinda woodsy, but the shampoo smells so damn good that he uses it twice and then even follows it up with conditioner, just to prolong it. By the time he turns the water off, his skin’s all pruned up, and his legs are shaking, just a little.

                He unties the trash bag and peels it away, checks the cast to find it’s still dry. When he straightens back up, he’s lightheaded and a little dizzy, has to steady himself with a hand wrapped tight around the counter. After a few seconds, he catches his breath and then reaches for a towel.

                “Damn, J,” he says, as he dries himself off. “Hygiene is exhausting.”

                “Mr. Barton,” JARIVS says, “I told you this was not medically advised.”

                “Shush, worrywart,” Clint says. “I’ve got this under control.”

                He does not have this under control. He’s thinking about taking a nap, right on the bathroom floor. There’s a nice, thick rug and everything. Hell, he’s definitely slept in worse places.

                “Mr. Barton,” JARVIS says, and Clint wonders if he’s imagining the exasperation or if that’s honestly something Tony programmed in. “Should I alert Mr. Stark to the situation? Do you require assistance?”

                “Yeah,” Clint says, rolling his eyes, “tell him I’m naked and need a pal.”

                There’s a brief pause, and then Clint makes an alarmed, choked-off noise. “J, that was sarcasm. Don’t—for fuck’s sake, don’t tell him I said that. It was a _joke_.”

                “I am very familiar with sarcasm,” JARVIS tells him, and Clint is absolutely not imagining the annoyance this time around. “Also,” he continues, a little primly, “sexual innuendo.”

                “God,” Clint says, as he makes his slow, dogged way back to bed, “of course you are.”

 

 

 

                JARVIS chimes him awake again, and Clint rolls over, groaning a little at the dull ache of his ribs. “Yeah, J?” he says, rubbing at his eyes. “Need something?”

                “Good evening, Mr. Barton,” JARIVS says, “it’s time for your medication.”

                Clint looks over at the empty bedside table. “Huh,” he says. “Is it?”

                “Mr. Stark left your medication outside your bedroom,” JARVIS tells him, helpfully. “Along with a change of clothes.”

                Clint looks down at himself and laughs. It creaks in his throat like something dying. “Oh, Goddamn it,” he says. He puts his head in his hands. “J, why didn’t you tell me to put my clothes back on?”

                “Sir,” JARVIS says, with a whole world of polite British condemnation in that single syllable, “I wasn’t sure you were going to make it back to bed without concussing yourself. You did not display the coordination necessary for dressing.”

                “I’m a circus kid, J,” Clint says, as he levers himself to his feet. “I can do a handstand on a tightrope while blackout drunk.”

                “Interesting hypothesis,” JARVIS says.

                Clint laughs again, and it’s a little better this time. It sounds like a real human noise. He levers himself up and then begins the long trek across the room, to the other door.

                “Mr. Barton,” JARVIS says, “I really--”

                “J,” Clint says, “you’re real sweet, but I promise you, I’ve done dumber shit than this.”

                “That isn’t comforting when Mr. Stark says it, either.”

                Clint remembers Tony being reckless, but he never saw a single hint of dumb in the weeks they spent together. He feels like he should defend Tony, but he’s a little preoccupied, hopping his way from one support to the other, taking a few seconds to catch his breath between the dresser and the opposite wall.

                When he makes it outside, he finds himself in a large room, furnished like the kind of hotel where the staff wouldn’t even let Clint in to use the lobby bathroom. He looks around at the sleek couches and heavy wooden furniture and the kitchen set into the opposite wall, all shiny appliances and stone countertops, and then he notices the pile of clothes on the nearest side-table, his beaten-up wallet balanced neatly on top, and a pair of crutches propped against the wall nearby.

                The whole wall is windows, but Clint figures anyone who can catch a peek probably paid enough for the privilege.

                He contorts his way into the clothes, doing his best to ignore the fact that none of them belong to him. There’s another gray Stark Industries t-shirt, and black athletic shorts, and a purple hoodie that reminds him of the one he wore that summer he spent with Tony, when they’d wander the streets of strange towns in the early morning, and Clint, who soaked up sunshine like a plant but shivered as soon as it dipped below 70, had worn a sweater in midsummer like a damn idiot.

                He doesn’t know what the hell to make of any of this. But the stupid hoodie is the first thing that’s hit hard enough to sink below the buzzing, shushing numbness of the pain and the pills.

                There’s a chance it’s an accident, but who the hell accidentally finds a purple hoodie? Who the hell takes in some cheap summer fling when they call from a hospital three years later?

                Clint shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t have called. He shouldn’t have let Tony do any of this.

                They’d had that summer, when Clint was just some dumb kid with his heart in his eyes, who didn’t know who Tony was, who didn’t _care_ , who was so taken by the brightness of him, by his quick-fire mind and his crooked grins and his steady, calloused hands. They’d had that, and maybe it had been made into a sick joke, a cautionary tale, but that had been afterwards, when Clint finally realized how far above his weight class he’d been punching. The summer itself had been a kind of stupid, naive, youthful perfect.

                Clint hadn’t ever wanted to ruin it, but he had anyway.

                “Hey, J,” he says, as he zips his hoodie up to his throat. “Wanna tell me where Stark is?”

                “You need to take your medication, sir,” JARVIS says.

                Clint squints down at the pills. “Which one’s the antibiotic?”

                “The white one,” JARVIS says. “But I’d advise taking all of your medications and returning to bed.”

                “Thanks, J,” Clint says. He takes the white pill, and then, after a second of debate, he grabs the crutches. “Okay,” he says, heading toward the nearest door. “C’mon, J, help me out. You gonna tell me where he is?”

                There’s a long pause. Clint wonders if JARVIS is talking to Tony, getting permission to let his errant houseguest invade Tony’s life all over again.

                “Alright, Mr. Barton,” JARVIS says, “I’ll direct you.”

                “Thanks,” Clint says. He wonders, for a second, if he should have grabbed anything from the room before he left.

                But there’s nothing here that belongs to him, not even the toothbrush he’s been using. And there’s something comforting, anyway, in the idea that there will be pieces of him still here after he’s gone. That toothbrush, his old clothes, wherever they are. It’ll be nice, not to be the one left behind, holding a business card like a breadcrumb, having to look, every day, at something that only served to remind him of what had gone out of his life.

                Not that Tony will keep any of it, probably. Out of the two of them, Clint figures he’s the only one who got sentimental about things.

                He steadies himself, clears his mind the way he used to, when he was Hawkeye, stepping on stage. One more role to play, and then he’ll be off, with his broken leg, and his antibiotics, and his purple hoodie, alone for the first time in his whole damn life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is taken from "No Hell" by Cloud Cult. 
> 
> For fic updates, follow me [on tumblr](https://thepartyresponsible.tumblr.com/).


	2. Chapter 2

                JARVIS plays something nice in the elevator, a little up-tempo, kinda bouncy. Clint wonders if he plays that for everyone, or if he’s somehow deduced that Clint needs cheering up. “Your floor, Mr. Barton,” JARVIS says, when the doors chime open. “Just follow the lights.”

                “Thanks, J,” Clint says, and sets off down the hallway. The lights flick on in front of him and off behind him, and he follows the trail JARVIS makes for him all the way into some kind of fancy entertaining room, big enough for a decent party, with a fully stocked bar taking up one whole wall.

                Clint hops his way into the room and then stops, eyeing the bar and the couches and the sets of chairs. He’s aware that he should probably sit down sometime soon. He’s not lightheaded, exactly, but he can feel a general fuzziness starting to creep in, and there’s a chance that his hands might be shaking. He doesn’t look down to check.

                He looks, instead, at the furniture, but, even after careful study, he can’t pick out a single piece that looks like something he has any business touching.  

                He’s still considering his options, leaning toward the barstools, when Tony Stark walks into the room, and every single thought goes out of Clint’s head.  

                He’s still beautiful. A little beyond the limits of what’s fair, really, but he’s always been like that. Even back toward the end of his time at the circus, when he’d been wearing Clint’s clothes, when he’d been just as dirty as the rest of them, when he used to leave motor oil and dust and dirt smeared across Clint’s skin, he’d always shone a little brighter than everyone else.

                He looks uncertain, as he walks into the room. Those bright brown eyes of his sweep Clint up and down and then dart to the bar. His mouth folds down the way it used to, back when some machine had twisted itself up in a particularly unhelpful way, and then he smiles, cheerful and friendly and maybe even a little bit sincere.

                “Hey, Barton,” he says, like Clint’s just some acquaintance he’s run into at the grocery store. “Are you supposed to be vertical right now?”

                “Hi,” Clint says. He almost calls him _Tony,_ which feels wrong. And then he almost calls him _Mr. Stark_ , which is worse. He clears his throat, and he doesn’t call him anything at all. “I’m better, actually. I’m—yeah. Fine.”

                Tony squints at him. He rocks forward on his toes and then settles back onto his heels, and he gives Clint a tolerant, dubious look. “Pretty pale for fine,” he observes, casually.

                Clint hesitates. He doesn’t want to talk about his health. He wants to make his excuses, offer up whatever pathetic thank yous he can find, and then get out of here.

                 “Hey,” Clint starts, full of momentum, “I should--”

                “Drink?” Tony says, diverting him instantly.

                Clint blinks, and Tony gestures helpfully to the bar.

                “Oh,” Clint says. He fumbles for a second. “I’m on medication.”

                Tony smiles, and it’s like an electric shock, the way it hits Clint’s chest, lights up his nervous system, leaves him dazed. “I forgot,” he says, amused and maybe a bit nostalgic, smiling like that’s some kind of novelty. “You never did mix your chemicals.”

                Clint lifts one shoulder in a shrug. He’s never liked feeling like he doesn’t have control. He hit his lifetime quota early, as far as having control taken away from him. Tony used to knock back liquor like the whole world would run dry in the morning, but Clint stuck to beer. Light beer, if he could get it, and never more than three or four in one night.

                “I just think,” he says, “that I should probably be sober. When I go.”

                Tony raises his eyebrows at him. That lighting strike smile disappears, wiped clean by some kind of PR-friendly face Clint’s only ever see on TV screens. Not that he watches Tony on TV a lot. Not _intentionally_ , anyway. It’s just that, sometimes, when there’s no game on, the bars will show the news, and Tony’s been on the news a fair bit these last three years.

                “You expect that’ll be soon?” Tony asks, as he steps behind the bar and starts going through whiskey bottles, examining labels. “Because I promised that doctor you’d be around for a follow-up in a couple weeks.”

                “A couple _weeks_ ,” Clint repeats, stunned. He swallows, just to buy time, to clear his head. He doesn’t know why it feels like he’s choking. “Tony, I couldn’t---”

                “Couldn’t go back to the circus,” Tony says. And this is one of Tony’s less endearing traits. He never did like to lose an argument. Clint watched him cut off a dozen other people, talk right over them so they couldn’t make their points, but he can’t remember Tony ever doing it to him. “They wouldn’t take you, right? Not with your leg like that.”

                Clint breathes through it. The circus, the fall. Barney, and Jacques, and the money they told everyone he took. He wonders how much of it Tony knows.  If Tony looked at him, maybe he could guess, but Tony’s finally settled on a bottle, and he’s busy pouring himself a glass. And maybe it’d be useless, anyway. Maybe Clint doesn’t know his tells anymore.

                “Can do other work,” Clint says, finally. “Find something else, until I’m better.”

                “Sure,” Tony says, with a shrug. For him, it probably is that easy. With a brain like his, he could find work faster than Clint could find his shoes in the morning. “Or you could stay here, and help me keep a promise to your doctor.”

                Clint’s not used to this. In the circus, he understood how people spoke to each other. He found a way to talk to Tony, three years ago, when they’d spent so much time wrapped up in each other that they’d developed a shorthand all their own, but that’s not how they’re talking to each other now.

                And he doesn’t know why the hell someone like Tony would want someone like him in his house, but the list of plausible options doesn’t run very long.

                He doesn’t fidget. He curls his hands a little tighter around the crutches, but Tony’s not even looking at him, so what does it matter?

                “Tony,” he says, and, at first, he thinks it’s his tone that gets Tony’s attention. It comes out too soft, low and a little sad, and Tony’s eyes flick up instantly to meet his, and Clint think he’s given too Goddamn much away, and then he realizes he used his _name_ , and he wants to swallow every word in his head, shut himself up before he can do any more damage.

                But it’s too late. And he’s balanced on an edge, willing to fall either direction, waiting for some kind of push. He’s tired, maybe, of waiting. If he has to push himself, well, it wouldn’t be the first time.

                “Tony,” he says, again, “I can’t even pay you back for what you’ve already done.”

                Tony blinks at him. For a second, he looks genuinely nonplussed, and then he just looks wary, like he’s suddenly realized that he doesn’t really understand the situation as well as he thought. “Why would you pay me back?” he asks, taking a measured sip of his whiskey.

                Clint stares at him. “Because,” he says, a little helplessly, “you flew me out here, you got _doctors_. You’ve been letting me stay here, and letting me bug JARVIS for things. And I haven’t—these aren’t even my _clothes_.”

                Tony grimaces at that. “Sorry,” he says, “About the clothes. We didn’t keep them. The blood wouldn’t come out. And, for the record, the nurses helped you change. I’m not a creep.”

                Clint should be relieved by that. It’s better that impersonal medical professionals saw the full extent of the damage done to him, and not Tony, but his mind is stuck on the idea that someone had to tell Tony Stark that they couldn’t save his clothes, because there was too much blood on them.

                He’s a _mess_. Here’s Tony, in this beautiful beachfront house, where everything’s clean, and a robot butler takes care of every single detail, and Clint hits like a tornado, dirty and bloody and partially broken, like detritus crashing through a window in a storm.

                “You can ask JARVIS for the footage, if you want,” Tony says. His voice is wrong. Softer, but colder. Defensive, maybe. Clint stares at him for a second, and then replays the last thing they’d been talking about.

                “Oh,” he says. He waves his hand, forgetting about the crutches, and damn near dropping one in the process. “I’m not worried,” he says. Because he _isn’t_. Tony looks up at him, quick and assessing, mouth set like he’s not sure if he believes him. “I’m _not_. Hell, Tony, it wouldn’t have mattered if you had.”

                Tony gives him a sharp, baffled look. “You become an exhibitionist in the last year three years, Barton? Because I have distinct memories of you changing behind a curtain.”

                “No,” Clint says, with another near-disastrous wave of his hand. “Christ, you flew me out here, you paid all these doctors. You can do whatever the hell you want.”

                Tony’s face closes off so fast it’s almost disorienting. Clint feels a little dizzy in the wake of it, and he’s honestly not sure if that has more to do with how quickly it happened or how little time Clint’s spent vertical recently.

                “Barton,” Tony says, low and almost warningly.

                Clint doesn't know if he meant what he implied or not. He’s never meant anything like it before. He knew girls – and some of the prettier boys – in the circus who did things like that, swapped favors and attention for cash and drugs and luxuries, but he’d never been among them. He’d passed on the opportunities, when they presented themselves, and, the older he got, the fewer there were, and the less tempted he was, anyway.

                Because a week or so ago, he was Hawkeye, and Hawkeye made enough money to get by. But now he’s just Clint, and Clint has twenty dollars, and a business card that represented the single favor he hadn’t called in yet.

                He wouldn’t _mind_ , he thinks. Or maybe he would. Maybe, even though he’s the one offering, he’d hate Tony a little, if he accepted. Maybe hating Tony would make this whole thing easier.

                And still, somehow, what’s bothering him the most is that Tony keeps calling him _Barton_ , like he doesn’t even remember Clint’s name.

                “I can’t pay you back,” Clint says. His voice is even. His hands are still at his sides. He feels the way he felt when he realized Jacques and Barney were stealing the circus’ money. He feels like he’s reached the end of a path that only ever led one direction, and he didn’t choose to be here, so maybe that means it isn’t his fault.

                Tony stares at him for a long second and then he tosses back the rest of his drink and starts pouring himself another. “Why the hell _would_ you?” he asks, like that makes any damn sense. “I thought this is what you wanted. I thought this is why you called. Why else would you have called me? You made it pretty damn clear you didn’t want anything to do with me, so it had to be the money.”

                It’s been awhile – years, a decade, almost – but a man with a glass full of whiskey and anger in his voice is still enough to winch Clint’s shoulders tight. He breathes through it, anchors himself in _now_ , because looking back to then has never done him any good.

                “I didn’t ask for this,” he says, as calmly as he can. Because he didn’t. Because he _wouldn’t_. Not even when the pain was a brewing, hateful, hungry thing inside him. Not even when he was desperate enough to make the phone call he promised himself he never would.

                He was going to ask for money. A hundred, maybe two. But he hadn’t had a chance. Tony had taken control immediately. And he’d done so much more than Clint would’ve let him, if he were aware enough to stop it.

                The pills Clint had refused to take earlier are probably worth more than all the money Clint could’ve made himself ask for.

                “No,” Tony says, “you didn’t. You didn’t ask me for anything.” He’s quiet for a second. He sets the bottle down, swirls the whiskey in his glass. When he raises his eyes to meet Clint’s, he looks tired. “So that makes this a gift,” he says, “and you don’t pay people back for gifts, Clint.”

                It’s been three years since he heard his name in Tony’s mouth. And it doesn’t mean anything. It _can’t_ mean anything. But it unlocks some of the tension in Clint’s chest, lets him take a real breath for the first time since he hopped out of that elevator earlier.

                “This is too much,” Clint says, after a second. “Tony, c’mon—you can’t just gift someone this _much_.”

                Tony shrugs. He takes another sip of his drink and then he sets it down, pushes the half-full glass up the bar, like he doesn’t want it within easy reach. Clint wonders, in that second, how Tony’s doing with his drinking, if it’s still so much, if it’s even more.

                “It’s not much,” Tony says. “Relatively speaking. It’s money, and I’ve got plenty of that.”

                “It’s too _much_ money,” Clint insists, although, honestly, he has no idea how much it is. This is beyond his ability to assess, which is a pretty clear indication that it’s too much to accept.

                “No.” Tony shakes his head and smiles, crooked and maybe fond, and Clint feels every one of his objections dissolving out of him. “When I showed up at a circus with nothing, you looked after me, and that was more than I should’ve asked from you. This is just money.”

                That’s not how Clint remembers it. He didn’t _look after_ Tony. Not in any significant way, not really. He showed him around, a little. He let Tony sleep next to him. He chased off a few people who didn’t have any business being around Tony. He’d done basic, decent things, until they were close enough that it was more about loyalty than decency.

                “I didn’t do that much,” Clint says. “I didn’t do _this_ much.”

                Tony rolls his eyes. He gives Clint a bemused, affectionate smile, and it’s so similar to how Tony used to look at him that Clint can’t look at it, drops his gaze to his crutches like he’s suddenly fascinated with the shape of them.

                “Fine,” Tony says. “Consider it interest.”

                Clint’s not a financial expert by any means. He’s never even had a bank account. But he’s reasonably sure interest doesn’t work quite like that. “Pretty sure you’re still getting the bad end of the deal,” he says.

                “Well,” Tony says, with a laugh, “I’ll just consider it a lesson in getting into debt without double-checking the interest rate.”

                It’s not entirely clear to Clint, but he thinks that was a shitty thing to say. He looks up at Tony, a little narrow-eyed, a little contemplative. He can’t afford to go anywhere. He could get a job, maybe, some kind of manual labor, but not until his leg’s healed up.

                But he hasn’t relied on anyone since he was about thirteen, back when he still needed Barney to fight off some of the bigger bullies. And it hurts, the idea that Tony considers him some kind of debt, some obligation.

                There’s nowhere to go, and nothing to do once he gets there, but maybe there’s nothing for him here, either.

                “Sorry,” Tony says, suddenly. He _looks_ it, too. He makes a grab for that tumbler full of whiskey, but freezes when he notices the look on Clint’s face. “Shit,” Tony says, and then dumps the rest of the glass into the sink.

                He’s awkward, just for a second. Off-balance, caught between plans. He runs a hand through his hair, makes it stick straight up in the front, and it’s dizzying, how comforting it is to see something Clint remembers.

                Or maybe he’s just dizzy because the pills are wearing off, and all that pain he’s been medically suppressing is starting to build itself back up.

                “Look,” Tony says, “I know you don’t want to be here. I should’ve—obviously, in retrospect, you should’ve just stayed at that hospital. I wasn’t thinking. You called me, and then I just—but I get it. You’d rather be anywhere else. But you’re here, so. You should just stay here. Until you’re better.”

                It’s not fair to say that Clint would rather be _anywhere_ else. But standing here, by virtue of Tony’s unearned generosity, skating along on the dregs of whatever Tony thinks he owes him, does rank pretty high on the list of places Clint wishes he’d never been.

                “I can—if it’s better, I can go somewhere else,” Clint says. “A motel, or something. I could--”

                “No,” Tony says, shaking his head. He’s cutting him off again, but it’s less insulting now that he seems less steady, less sure of himself. “Honestly, Barton, you could spend a couple years in this place, and I’d never see you. It’s no problem.”

                “Oh,” Clint says. “Is that how you want things to go?”

                Tony blinks at him. He gets that look on his face again, like he’s just realized he doesn’t understand the situation after all. He waves a hand, a little more wildly than before, and Clint wonders if he tends to rely on the weight of a tumbler to keep his hand gestures in check.

                “I’m just saying,” Tony says, “that it’s up to you. Alright? Stay in your suite, wander the place. Go paddle around in the ocean, get pizza delivered, invite half the circus up for a party. Whatever. Just stay until you’re better. I know you’d rather be using the sheets to rappel down the side of the building, but it’d be incredibly ungrateful of you to jeopardize all that medical care I paid for.”

                The trouble with Tony’s brain has always been how quickly it spins. By the time Clint’s deciphering one snapshot of where Tony’s head is, he’s already spun himself a half mile in another direction. Toward the end of the summer, Clint had picked up the habit of it, could figure out what Tony was thinking as long as it wasn’t anything technical, but, right now, he’s got no damn idea what’s going on in Tony’s head.

                But he doesn’t want to be some secret, stashed away in a guest suite. He thinks, if he has to spend the next couple of weeks hiding upstairs, sneaking out for food only when JARVIS assures him Tony isn’t around, he _is_ going to end up escaping in the middle of the night, although he probably wouldn’t sacrifice any of Tony’s perfectly nice bed linens to the cause.

                And he’s not used to being alone. He’s used to the crowded life of the circus, where he couldn’t go five feet in any direction without crashing into a handful of people he knew.

                “If you don’t want to see me,” Clint says, cautiously, “I can--”

                “That’s not what I said,” Tony interrupts. “I said it’s up to you. You pick. Don’t—for fuck’s sake, Barton.” He shakes his head, fluffs his hair up with another hasty hand running through it. “Do whatever you want. This is only going to be weird if you make it weird.”

                Clint can’t think of a single time in his life, when given the opportunity to make something weird, he didn’t succeed in making it weird as hell.

                But Tony knows that about him. Or used to, anyway. And it had never seemed to matter much to him.

                “Alright,” he says. “Guess maybe I’ll see you later, then.”

                “Okay,” Tony says, with a shrug and wide, unreadable eyes. “Sure.”

                Clint thinks about saying _thanks_. He knows he should. But he’s tired, getting dizzier every minute, and he needs to be back in bed, immediately. And there’s something fragile between them. Tony’s watching him carefully, a little skeptical, a little hesitant, and Clint doesn’t know what it is, but he knows he doesn’t want to break it.

                “Okay,” Clint says. “Gonna go sleep now.”

                “Sure,” Tony says, with an eager nod. “Good idea.”

                JARVIS lights his way back to his suite. Once inside, Clint tumbles onto the nearest couch, doesn’t entertain for a second the ridiculous notion that he could make it to bed.

                “Sleep well, sir,” JARVIS says, as Clint props his bad leg against one arm of the crouch. The wall of windows automatically dims into darkness.

                “Wake me up,” Clint mumbles, “for dinner. Whenever Tony eats.”

                “Of course,” JARVIS says.

                He’s making it up, probably. But there’s a weird note in JARVIS’ tone that Clint tells himself is approval.

 

 

 

                Later, when JARVIS chimes him awake, Clint makes his way to the elevator and is still yawning when JARVIS leads him down another hallway to a kitchen. Tony looks up from a line of takeout containers and blinks.

                “Oh,” he says, after a moment of thought. “I wondered why JARVIS ordered so much.” He reaches behind him and takes another plate and set of silverware out of the cabinets and drawers.

                “Is this--” Clint hesitates. “I could--”

                “No,” Tony says, forcefully. “It’s fine. Good to see you vertical again.” He pauses, closes his eyes, and makes a face of extremely tested patience. “Not that I spent a lot of time looking at you when you were horizontal,” he says. “Jesus Christ, ignore me. I’ve been working all day. I’m not fit for human company right now.”

                “Yeah,” Clint says, trying to bite back a small grin, “I remember how you get.”

                Tony stares at him, and then, slowly, he smiles. “I’ll have you know,” he says, “that I am _much_ more charming than I was at twenty.”

                “Oh, sure,” Clint says, with an agreeable shrug. “You’d have to be,” he mutters, a second later. Just testing, just trying to figure out where they are.

                “Alright,” Tony says, with a sharp, pleased grin and a noticeable relaxation of the line of his shoulders. “Because I’m a gracious host, I’m not gonna point out that, even as a walking human disaster, I still got in _your_ spangled purple tights, so--”

                “They were not spangled,” Clint says. “Did you hook up with one of the aerialists? They wore spangled tights.”

                Tony rolls his eyes. He drops two plates on the nearby table, and he shoves the one piled with an absolutely incomprehensible amount of food toward Clint. “Of course I didn’t,” he says, as he digs his fork into the rice in front of him. “Whole circus full of beautiful libertines, and you’re the only one I ever saw.”

                Clint chokes on his food. He survives by knocking back half of the water glass Tony helpfully sets in front of him, and then he levels a look Tony’s direction, because what the _hell_. They’ve been joking, sure, but that’s still too raw of a thing to joke about, even three years later.

                “I was _not_ ,” he says, “a beautiful libertine.”

                Tony shrugs. He does not look apologetic. “You were getting fairly liberated,” he says, mildly, “by the end of the summer.”

                “Stark,” Clint says, because it’s better than _Tony_. Reminds both of them, at once, of their proper places.

                “Barton,” Tony returns, in a mocking approximation of Clint’s warning tone. “Fine,” he says, a second later, waving a hand, “we won’t talk about your tights. If you miss them so much, I’ll see about ordering you a few pairs. Don’t worry about overdressing on my account. Wear whatever makes you comfortable.”

                The food that was delicious two seconds ago settles unpleasantly in his stomach, and Clint realizes, abruptly, that he really, really can’t do this. He can’t sit here and flirt with Tony Stark. He’d rather be upstairs, alone, knotting sheets together to make an escape attempt.

                “What’re you working on?” he asks.

                Tony hesitates for a second, eyes sweeping Clint’s face, and then he knocks his plate to the side and starts setting up something complicated with his silverware and the salt and pepper shakers. “Alright,” he says, “what do you know about intercontinental ballistic missiles?”

                Clint relaxes. He makes a soft, thoughtful noise. “Better start at ‘ballistic,’” he says.

                “Okay,” Tony says, and does.

                An hour later, Clint still doesn’t understand what the hell Tony’s working on, but they’re fine, the two of them. Easy and relaxed, like strangers at a bar, talking about whatever game is on the screen.

                _Two weeks_ , Clint thinks, later, as he’s trying to fall to sleep.

                He thinks about the graceful arch of Tony’s hands, as he tries to explain trajectory and guidance systems and MIRVs. He thinks about the light in his eyes, the flash of his smile, the way he can hook Clint’s focus and reel him in, like it’s nothing, like Clint’s just an unresisting fish on the end of an unbreakable line.

                He’s not sure he can do two weeks.

                But he can do tomorrow. So at least he’s better off than he was yesterday.


	3. Chapter 3

                It isn’t terrible, living at Tony’s place. It’s the opposite, really. JARVIS keeps a close eye on him.  Clint gets updates about his medications and meals, and, every time he hops into a room, the lights come on and the temperature adjusts. It’s strange, and a little unsettling at first. He’s used to looking after himself.

                “You know, J,” he says, early on, “you don’t have to check up on me all the time.”

                “My apologies, Mr. Barton,” JARVIS says. “Would you prefer more privacy?”

                “Oh.” Clint thinks that over for a moment, head tipped against the back of the gloriously comfortable couch that appeared in his suite sometime in the early afternoon, when he was down napping by the pool. “Nah, J, that’s not it. I don’t _mind_. I just don’t want you--- I don’t know. Using all your memory babysitting me if Tony needs you for something.”

                “It’s very kind of you to worry,” JARVIS says, “but, I assure you, monitoring guests’ comfort is in no way taxing.”

                “I’m still a guest, huh?” Clint smiles at the nearest camera. “Figured we were friends by now.”

                “You are one of my favorite guests, sir,” JARVIS says.

                “Hm,” Clint says. He tugs his legs up onto the couch, lets himself fall over onto his side. He’s still dazed from all the sun, feels like the heat has settled into his bones. “Still kinda mad about all that sand, huh?”

                “It is no inconvenience at all to run the vacuuming units,” JARVIS tells him, and _there_ it is. That little note of primness that means he disapproves.

                Clint grins into the arm of the couch. “I said I was sorry.”

                “As I said, Mr. Barton,” JARVIS continues, “the sand was no problem. And I had already prepped the vacuum units to fetch you from the beach had your decision to wander beyond the medically advised limits of daily exercise somehow backfired.”

                “That’s sweet, J,” Clint says. “That’s nice that you were gonna plan a rescue for me. Guess we’re friends after all.”

                “If you say so, Mr. Barton,” JARVIS says, in a tone that heavily implies he’s only friends with people who possess the bare minimum of survival instincts.

                Although, given the way Tony tends to stagger up to breakfast with bags under his eyes and his hands gone shakey from the caffeine he swigs like water, maybe it’s just that JARVIS only has room for one friend who can’t look after himself.

                “J,” Clint says, as the heat and the constant, low-level fatigue from his leg and ribs starts dragging him under. “Wake me up for dinner, and I’ll see if I can make Tony eat, too.”

                “Alright, Mr. Barton,” JARVIS says. The lights fade out, and the windows overlooking the beach dim to black. “Sleep well.”

                “Thanks,” Clint says. He’s awake just long enough to hear the air conditioner hum alive, and then he’s out until JARVIS chimes him awake again, hours later.

 

 

 

                JARVIS is easily Clint’s favorite part of Tony’s house. He and Clint chatter back and forth all day, and the AI never gives any indication that he’s too busy for Clint’s questions or requests or pointless comments. He’ll project the morning news or an action movie or a livestream from the beach right onto Clint’s bedroom wall, if Clint asks. And if Clint has a question about any particular headline, JARVIS will hop from one screen to another, showing Clint articles or videos, giving him context for current events and definitions for words he doesn’t know.

                The circus was a world all its own, with fraught diplomatic negotiations and technological revolutions and convoluted personal relationships, but, as it turns out, Clint’s been living a pretty insular life. He’s fascinated by how much of the world he can explore without leaving bed, or the couch, or the ridiculously comfortable chairs by Tony’s pool.

                He gets so used to asking JARVIS for clarification that he does it – humiliatingly – in front of Tony.

                It hadn’t mattered to anyone at the circus that Clint never finished middle school. He was more educated than some, less educated than others, but no one had ever been interested in him for his brain, so it didn’t matter how well it worked.

                “Um,” Clint says, after JARVIS helpfully rattles off a definition and the floor, stubborn and useless and unhelpful, opts not to swallow Clint immediately. “Thanks, J.”

                “You’re welcome, Mr. Barton,” JARVIS says. He sounds a little more cheerful than usual, as if he’s trying to make a point. Clint wonders if his pulse spiked when he realized he’d just asked JARVIS to define a word Tony used before Tony had even left the room.

                “Sorry,” Tony says, after a beat. “I didn’t--”

                “No,” Clint says. “It’s fine. I guess I got too used to asking him for stuff.”

                “That’s what he’s for,” Tony says. And that may be true, but Tony’s probably never asked JARVIS for vocabulary help before.

                “Sure,” Clint says.

                “No one uses actinides in a sentence,” Tony says, earnestly.

                “Okay,” Clint says, with a shrug.

                Tony looks uncomfortable. Embarrassed, maybe. Like he feels bad for Clint, or like he feels bad for himself.

                “Tony,” Clint says, as reassuringly as he can, “it’s fine. I’m an idiot. I _know_ that. It’s fine.”

                “You’re not an idiot,” Tony says, face clouding up with what Clint would call indignation if it made any damn sense. “Christ, Clint. Don’t call yourself that.”

                “Stark,” Clint says, because he thinks, maybe, they need another reminder of what they are to each other. He’s just a broke circus performer, crashing in Tony’s spare room, because he’s made a series of stupid decisions.

                “I know idiots,” Tony tells him. “Justin Hammer is a fucking idiot. _You_ are not an idiot.”

                “Sure,” Clint says. He doesn’t want to have this argument. It makes him think about elementary school, when Mrs. Han told him, over and over, that she believed in him, and he’d fucked everything up every time anyway.

                He used to tell himself that at least he wasn’t so stupid that he couldn’t make a living. He guesses he can’t really tell himself that anymore.

                “Clint,” Tony says, sharp, angry, “what’s an actinide?”

                Clint blinks at him. “They’re elements,” he says, slowly. “There’s fifteen of them, and they’re metal, and they’re all radioactive.”

                Tony throws his hands up like he’s proved something, and he makes a low, irritated noise when Clint just blinks at him. “Idiots,” he says, “don’t learn. Cut yourself some fucking slack, Barton. You can’t know what you haven’t been taught.”

                “Right,” Clint says. “And someone taught you to invent all the shit you make?”

                “Oh, okay.” Tony rolls his eyes. “And no one taught van Gogh how a fucking paintbrush works. Jesus.”

                “It’s not the same,” Clint says.

                “It’s _exactly_ the same,” Tony argues back, and Clint doesn’t need any stronger proof that he’s an idiot than the way his heart speeds up, beats faster, just from the way Tony looks, intent and focused and a little worked up on Clint’s behalf.

                “You’re not an idiot,” Tony says. “An idiot wouldn’t’ve asked. Idiots aren’t curious.”

                Clint can’t really remember a time that curiosity has done him any good, but Tony’s always been curious. Clint remembers those first couple weeks at the circus, when Tony wandered around like he planned to write a research paper later. Tony had asked questions constantly. The difference between the two of them was that Tony’s questions had always been smart.

                “Okay,” Tony says. His tone is a little forceful. Clint eyes him sideways, tries to get a read on where he’s going. “You and me,” he says, “are going down to the lab. We’re gonna rip apart a smoke detector.”

                “Uh,” Clint says. He hasn’t been to Tony’s lab yet. He’s curious about that, too, and, even with the fresh lesson about curiosity still making the back of his neck burn with embarrassment, he’s having a hard time declining the invitation. “A smoke detector?”

                “Americium,” Tony tells him. “It’s an actinide. It’ll be in the ionization chamber.”

                Clint presses his lips together and tells himself not to ask what an ionization chamber is. But Tony gives him a look, careful and encouraging and maybe a little hopeful, and he folds, immediately. “What’s an ionization chamber?”

                Tony grins at him, and it’s blinding. It’s just like they used to be, when Tony could make Clint trip over his own feet just by flashing one of those grins from across a room.

                “C’mon,” Tony says, jerking his chin toward the hall. “We’re gonna have so much fun, Barton.”

 

 

 

                There’s a strange, blurred-together evening when JARVIS wakes Clint up in the middle of the night and then, immediately, apologizes. “Very sorry, Mr. Barton,” he says, as Clint flails around and stares blearily at the ceiling.  “I’m afraid there was a malfunction.”

                Clint rubs at his face and wonders if Tony programmed JARVIS to lie or if he picked that up on his own.

                “Uh-huh,” he says, through a yawn. He tries to figure out what would prompt JARVIS to wake him up and then lie about his motivations. “Where’s Tony?”  he asks, after a few more brain cells haul themselves toward consciousness.

                “Mr. Stark has returned from his evening out,” JARVIS reports dutifully, if a bit too quickly. “He is navigating his way indoors.”

                “Navigating,” Clint repeats.

                “Attempting to do so, yes,” JARVIS says.

                “Mhm.” Clint hauls his legs over the side of the bed. “Is he drunk?”

                There is a long, drawn-out silence. “I cannot comment on that, sir,” he says, finally.

                Clint thinks it’s really interesting that Tony gave JARVIS permission to report his location but not his level of intoxication. It doesn’t indicate anything good, that Tony’s had the forethought to lock down access to that specific subject.

                “Okay,” he says, hauling himself to his feet and fishing his hoodie off the nearby dresser. He tugs it on, zips it most of the way up his bare chest, and checks to make sure he wore shorts to bed before he grabs his crutches and starts off.

                “You gonna give me more exact directions than ‘outside’?” he asks, as he makes his way out of his suite and into the elevator.

                “Of course, Mr. Barton,” JARVIS says. “He is currently in the driveway.”

                He is, in fact, in the center of his driveway, sprawled out on his back, staring up at the stars. He’s pretty mussed, but he doesn’t seem hurt, just tired and maybe a little cold in the chill breeze.

                “Hey,” Clint says, when he gets close, “most people bring a tent when they go camping. And they, you know. Actually leave their property.”

                “Oh, hey,” Tony says, tipping his head back to blink up at him. He frowns and then reaches a hand up to rub at his eyes. “JARVIS send you?”

                “No,” Clint says, “I was awake. Saw headlights.”

                Tony looks like he’s going to fall for that for about five seconds, and then his frown gets deeper. “Your windows face the other way.”

                “I’ve got really good eyes,” Clint says. “You wanna get up?”

                Tony’s quiet for a long moment and then heaves a heavy, put-upon sigh. “Yeah,” he says, grimly, “I guess that’s the only real option.”

                Clint works his way closer and then holds a hand down to Tony, who considers it for a while before finally reaching up to grab it. He doesn’t put much weight on it while he levers himself to his feet, but there’s a moment where he wobbles, and his hand tightens, and Clint keeps his balance while Tony finds his own.

                “Thanks,” Tony says, when he’s finally vertical.

                “Sure,” Clint says, with a shrug. This close, he can smell the alcohol on Tony’s breath. It makes him want to throw up, but that’s his baggage, not Tony’s. And it looks like, right now, Tony has enough of his own. “Let’s get inside.”

                “Right,” Tony says, like it’s exhausting, holding even these simple steps in his head. “I can walk,” he adds, but it sounds like more of an untested theory than an established fact.

                “Yeah, definitely,” Clint says. “I knew a girl, she could walk a tightrope blindfolded after half a bottle of tequila.”

                “Oh, God,” Tony says, voice suddenly strangled in his throat. “Let’s not talk about tequila.”

                Back in the circus, Tony’s drink of choice was whiskey, although he never minded vodka, and he’d drink beer or wine, if he wasn’t planning a particularly exciting evening. Clint’s not sure what to make of the tequila.

                Maybe it doesn’t mean anything. Maybe he should just focus on getting Tony inside.

                “C’mon,” Clint says, with a gentle nudge of his shoulder. “Wanna race? I’ll let you take the crutches.”

                “You’re sweet,” Tony grumbles, as he very determinedly starts putting one foot in front of the other. He makes it three solid steps and then sighs, wistful and almost sad. “You always were.”

                Clint swallows. His crutches clatter against the pavement as he takes an awkward step. “You sure you’re remembering me? Because that sounds like someone else.”

                Tony snorts. “Yeah,” he says, “because your perception of yourself has always been amazingly accurate. Flawless. Like a Goddamn funhouse mirror, Barton, I swear.” He waves a hand a little too enthusiastically and nearly capsizes right into the nearest planter.

                Clint grabs the back of his shirt and hauls him closer to the middle of the path. Tony huffs and straightens, manages to get himself reasonably vertical again.

                “See?” Tony says. “Do you _see_?”

                “I see that we’re coming to a patch of stairs,” Clint says. “And I’d like for you to focus on those.”

                “ _Stairs_ ,” Tony says, angrily, and stomps his way up the first one like it said something derogatory about JARVIS. “I’m trying to talk about you.”

                “I think you maybe shouldn’t,” Clint says. Although he wishes he would. He never understood, even back then, what Tony saw when he looked at him. He’d never been able to figure out why Tony, who could’ve had anyone in that circus, picked him.

                But Tony’s drunk. And it isn’t fair. It’s not right.

                “God,” Tony says, and swivels around, sharply, at the top of the stairs. Clint fumbles, barely catches himself in time to stop from stepping up and right into the center of Tony’s chest.

                They’re almost the same height, on even ground. Clint’s maybe an inch or so taller, but he slouches, so it doesn’t show. Right now, though, Tony’s got a stair’s worth of height on him, and Clint’s uncomfortable and uneasy, staring up into his eyes.

                “You,” Tony says, nonsensically. It’s the beginning of a sentence that he swallows, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He looks away for a second, eyes darting up like he’s staring at the stars again, and then he looks back at him. “You were so sweet to me.”

                “We should,” Clint says and then finds he’s lost all his words. Tony looks so tired, worn thin, worn out, and Clint wonders what the hell happened at the gala that’s left Tony so hollow. “It’s late,” Clint says. “We should go to bed.”

                “Happily,” Tony says, with a barbed smirk.

                Clint blinks, and he feels himself start to flush. “I didn’t mean--”

                “No,” Tony says. “You wouldn’t.” That smirk twists up on itself, turns into something sad and ugly and then disappears entirely.

                “Tony,” Clint says, “didn’t you have a date for this thing? This gala? Where is she?”

                Tony laughs and then shrugs, wheeling around on his heels so quickly that Clint damn near has to catch him all over again. “Oh,” he says, as he starts toward the door. “I gave her my credit card. I assume they’re having a great night together.”

                Clint tells himself he’s got no right to judge some girl for treating Tony like a walking ATM when he’d so recently done the same thing. But it irritates the hell out of him anyway.

                “Her loss,” Clint says, as he hauls the door open and holds it while Tony swerves his way inside. “If she couldn’t see you’re--”

                “No need to strain yourself coming up with a list of my virtues,” Tony tells him, cutting him off like he’s doing him a favor.

                “I wouldn’t have to _strain_ myself,” Clint says. He’s honestly not sure which of them he’s feeling defensive of. Maybe both. He always did like to make things complicated.

                Tony smiles at him again as they walk into the elevator. He falls back against the wall, and he’s a rumpled, disheveled mess, so it’s really not fair that he should still look so devastating. But Clint always liked him best when he was a little bit of a mess. It was the only time he felt like they were anything like equal.

                Ever since Clint got here, Tony’s been clean and fastidious. Expensive. Like an art piece in a museum. Something to be admired from a distance, but not something you should ever put your hands on.

                Right now, Tony looks like something else.

                “See?” Tony asks, tipping his head to the side and smiling, soft and crooked and maybe a little bitter. “Sweet.”

                “Tony,” Clint says, tightening his hold around his crutches.

                Tony doesn’t want anything to do with him. Tony is _Tony Stark_.

                Tony is drunk.

                Tony is also staring directly at Clint’s mouth.

                The elevator chimes as it hits the next floor, and Clint didn’t even realize how close they were until he’s suddenly pulling himself together and moving out into the hall.

                He hesitates for a second and then turns to look back over his shoulder. “Night, Tony,” he says, when he finds Tony staring at him, face darkened by something Clint can’t name.

                “Goodnight, Clint,” Tony says, softly.

                Clint looks at him until the elevator doors slide shut, and then he makes his way back to his room.

 

 

 

                Two weeks into his stay, a medical team shows up to check on Clint. JARVIS mentions in the morning that he has an appointment at 1:00, so Clint’s downstairs, waiting for the car, when the van pulls up.

                “Oh,” he says, trying not to go all wide-eyed as they unload equipment. “I figured—we can do this at a clinic or whatever. If that’s easier.”

                “We’re already here,” the doctor says, with a cheerful smile. “Let’s get inside and check on that leg.”

                His leg, he learns about an hour later, is healing well.

                “You’re young,” the doctor tells him. “And fit. And better at following directions than most people your age. Just keep doing what you’re doing for another four weeks, and we’ll take that cast off and start physical therapy.”

                Clint blinks. “Another—Doc, c’mon. I thought two weeks. It’s been two weeks. Can’t we take it off now?”

                The doctor grimaces down at his tablet. “Well, Mr. Barton, would you like to limp for the rest of your life?”

                “I mean,” Clint says, “no, but--”

                “Whatever hobby you miss,” the doctor says, “will still be waiting for you when you get out of the cast.”

                Clint locks his jaw. He looks at the doctor and then, glancing sideways, he looks at the nurse. She meets his gaze with a small, sympathetic smile, and he thinks she’s probably the only one in this whole house who knows what it’s like to need a functional leg because you need to _eat_ , and not because you really need to get back to blindfolded downhill snowboard racing or whatever the hell it is rich people do to feel alive.

                He closes his eyes, makes himself take a deep breath. It’s not the doctor’s fault. It’s sure as hell not _Tony’_ s fault.

                His problem is his own damn fault, and there’s no reason to get angry at any of these people who are just trying to help him fix it.

                “Okay,” he says, with a smile that feels like it belongs to Hawkeye, to bright circus lights and a clapping audience. “Thanks, Doc.”

 

 

 

                He wants to stay, which is how he knows he needs to leave. In his experience, the hardest thing is usually the right thing, and he’s not going to stay here, leeching off Tony, for another four weeks. He shouldn’t have stayed for two. He wouldn’t have, if he’d known that the doctor was just going to pat him on the head, pass him more pills, and go on his way.

                He’s steady on his crutches now, and the bruises and cuts have all faded to almost nothing. Someone will hire him for something. And if he has to cut the cast off to make that happen, well, he’s sure as hell done dumber things.

                Maybe, if he finds something profitable enough, he can send money back to Tony a little at a time. He’ll probably break even sometime around age fifty.

                “Hey, J,” Clint says, as he finishes straightening up the suite and making a pile of all the things he’s acquired – clothes, mostly, but also books, and a tablet, and half-empty pill bottles – that don’t actually belong to him. “You got a playlist for when you’re feeling really sorry for yourself?”

                “I could certainly draw on one of Mr. Stark’s,” JARVIS says, “if that would be helpful.”

                Clint laughs and grins up at the ceiling, shaking his head. “Gonna miss you, J.”

                “I believe the doctor suggested that you should rest for another four weeks, Mr. Barton,” JARVIS says, because, as usual, he’s too polite to call Clint a dumbass to his face.

                “C’mon, J,” Clint says. “Tony’s not opening a clinic. I gotta get out of his hair.”

                JARVIS doesn’t say anything. It’s unusual, finding a topic that JARVIS can’t at least maintain a conversation about. Clint’s developed a theory that the only things JARIVS can’t talk about are things he’s been deliberately instructed _not_ to talk about.

                So far, he’s got _SI developments, Tony’s drinking,_ and _hours Tony’s been awake_ on that list. He adds _Tony’s feelings about houseguests who become squatters_ to the list and sighs.

                “Okay,” he says, “where is he, J? I think we’re a little past the point where I can leave a note and sneak out a window.”

                “Mr. Stark is currently in his lab,” JARVIS says.

                “Huh.” Clint puts his whole life in his pocket - twenty dollars, and a business card with a handwritten note on the back - and runs a hand through his hair. “Think he’ll mind the interruption?”

                “No, Mr. Barton,” JARVIS says. “I think he’d welcome it.”

 

 

 

                Tony’s a little manic around the edges when Clint makes his way into the lab. He looks up, hair sticking in several directions, eyes the tiniest bit bloodshot. “Oh,” he says, like he’d forgotten people existed, much less that one lived in his house. “Clint,” he says, after a second. “Hey. Hi.”

                They haven’t talked, really, since Clint helped him after that gala a few days ago. They’ve seen each other in passing, in the kitchen or down by the pool or in hallways, but Tony’s been busy, always rushing to his lab or to SI.

                “Hey, Tony,” Clint says, with a wave. Tony’s lab is unusually cluttered. It looks like he’s in the middle of at least three simultaneous projects. “So, the doctor came by, and he said---”

                “I’ve got something,” Tony says, stepping away from his table. There’s a dark stain down the front of his shirt, and it could be coffee, or it could be motor oil. “To show you,” Tony says, a second later. “Glad you’re here. I need your help. C’mon.”

                Clint blinks. “Okay,” he says, “sure. In a minute. I’ve gotta--”

                “Are your arms tired?” Tony asks, blurting it out like he physically can’t keep the words behind his teeth. “From the crutches, I mean. You sore?”

                “What?” Clint hesitates, tries to reroute his train of thought. “No, Tony, c’mon. I’m an archer, remember? My arms aren’t--”

                “Great,” Tony says. He jogs up the steps, right into Clint’s space, and then hooks a hand around Clint’s elbow and spins him around. “Come on,” he says, “basement level. We’re all set up.”

                “We’re _in_ the basement,” Clint points out, hopping a little awkwardly on his good leg while he gets reoriented toward the elevator. “Tony, I’m trying---”

                “JARVIS,” Tony says, as he zips toward the elevator. “Cameras and sensors active in the range?”

                “On standby, sir,” JARVIS says, with infinite patience. “Waiting from input.”

                “That’s you,” Tony says, with a meaningful look Clint’s direction.

                “Stark,” Clint says, losing patience. “It’s been two weeks. I need to---”

                “Sensors,” Tony says, “waiting for input. Let’s _go_ , Barton.”

                Clint sighs and follows him into the elevator. He remembers what it’s like, when Tony gets his teeth into an idea. There’s no use trying to corral him until he’s ready for it. And, anyway, he’s been here for two weeks. Another hour or so won’t damn him any further.

 

 

 

                There is an archery range in Tony’s basement. They walk off the elevator and right into the middle of it. Clint turns his head slowly to look at Tony, who blinks at him and then turns sharply toward a back wall, where he finds a coffeemaker to huddle around.

                “Tony,” Clint says, staring at Tony’s back.

                “So,” Tony says, “I’ve been developing a few bows.”

                “Stark,” Clint tries, doing his best to keep the alarm out of his voice.

                “And I don’t personally know any archers, other than you,” Tony says, to the coffeemaker, “and we’re flying in a few, from South Korea, I think. Whoever won the Olympics last time. But before they get here, it’d be helpful if you could--”

                “ _Tony_ ,” Clint says.

                “What,” Tony says, turning to face him, coffee cup held to his chest, eyes as wide and guileless as he can make them.

                Clint leans his crutches against the wall so Tony can get the full effect of his incredulous gesture. “Tony, this is an _archery range_.”

                “Yeah, I’d hope so,” Tony says, squinting around. “That’s what I paid for.”

                “You,” Clint says, as clearly as he can, “are not an archer.”

                Tony’s face falls into a very earnest expression of baffled confusion. It looks practiced. Clint imagines he uses it a lot in board meetings. “Right,” he says, slowly. “That’s why I’m asking you to use it.”

                Clint doesn’t have a panic attack, because that would be stupid. It would be endlessly, hopelessly, ridiculous stupid to have a panic attack because Tony flew him across the country, paid his medical bills, housed him for two weeks, and renovated his house, and now Clint, somehow, has to find a way to pay him back for all of it.

                “You’d be doing me a favor,” Tony says, voice gone cautious in the way it does, when he thinks he’s done something wrong. “I’ll be paying those Olympic archers, you know. Consultant fee. Very generous.”

                It clicks in Clint’s head, comes together with the easy, simple grace of an arrow thudding into a bullseye. “Oh,” he says. He laughs, can’t help it. “Shit.”

                The backflips they do, just to meet each other in the middle. Clint tells Tony he needs to pay him back, and Tony drags SI into bow development just so Clint can consult in the basement, pay him back with the one useful skill he has.

                It’d be sweet, if it weren’t a horrifying and almost insulting waste of Tony’s time. Like Tony thinks he has to fix every problem Clint has because Clint couldn’t possibly fix a single one of them himself.

                There’s some shred of pride that wants to get angry. But Clint’s spent his whole life suffocating that part of himself, so at least he has practice.

                “Alright,” he says, because the range is built, the bows are made, and, if this is the only way he can be useful, he doesn’t mind being put to use. “Let’s see them.”


	4. Chapter 4

                Somehow, a whole month goes by, and Clint doesn’t even notice. The first week, he’s in the basement almost nonstop. Tony buzzes around, takes one bow out of his hands and gives him another, talks to him through the wall speakers, shows up with lunch and a billion questions about grip and range and accuracy.

                The second week, the archers from South Korea show up, and Tony takes him to SI to meet them. Clint’s learned some Korean from JARVIS, but he runs through all of it pretty quickly, and the others don’t engage much, too busy talking to each other and investigating the breakfast options. Once they make it to the range, the ludicrous way his Iowa accent sounds, filtered through his attempts at Korean, doesn’t seem to matter anymore.

                One of the women stalks over to him, chin jutted out, eyes grim and serious.  “Where have you been?” she demands, like he’s late for a dental appointment.

                Her accent leans toward proper, sounds like she learned English from someone who knows the language a hell of a lot better than Clint does.

                “Uh,” he says, holding his bow protectively against his chest. She’s maybe half a foot shorter than him, but the muscles roping down her arms suggest she could break his neck without too much effort. “Around?” he tries.

                She sizes him up. Her eyes linger on the cast on his foot. “I have not seen you,” she tells him, “at the competitions.”

                “Yeah,” he says, “I don’t compete. I’m a performer. For a circus.”

                She gives him a look of breathtaking incredulity. “A circus,” she says, trying out the word. She repeats it, eerily enough, in a perfect imitation of his accent. “A circus is what?”

                Clint fumbles. He scans his pathetic dictionary of Korean terms, and wishes like hell that JARVIS were wired into the walls of this building, too. “It’s,” he says. “You know, clowns? Acrobats? There’s dancers, tightropes. Dancers _on_ tightropes. Uh, magicians, sometimes. Animals?”

                “Yes,” she says, suspiciously. “I thought that’s what you meant.”

                Clint assesses her expression, calculates her weight and reach, and tells himself, if it came down to it, he could probably stop her from beating him up.

                She turns suddenly and goes back the group, and Clint has no hope of translating what she says, but the looks the others give him – blank, dubious, alarmed – are very telling. He ducks his head and goes back to work.

                They’re all here to work. It doesn’t matter what they think about him.

                “Fair warning,” one of the men says, as he saunters up to Clint later. “Ji-min plans to smuggle you back in her suitcase.”

                Clint stretches his hands and then reaches for his water bottle. He squints at the woman from before, who is watching him with an almost predatory intensity. “You mean, like. In pieces?”

                “Maybe,” he says, with a bright, cheerful laugh. “Probably,” he adds, more soberly, “if you tell her you’re going to shoot for the Americans.”

                Clint considers the warning and then nods. “Tell her I’m Canadian.”

                “Good choice,” he says. “The Canadians are terrible. Even you couldn’t save them.”

                At the end of the day, Ji-min orders him into the back of a car, and Clint genuinely considers running until Seo-jun, the man he talked to earlier, climbs in first. Clint figures, whatever Ji-min might be capable of, Seo-jun seems about as threatening as a golden retriever.

                They get dinner, and, the day after that, they get drinks with the whole team, and Clint’s fascinated and a little starstruck, because it turns out that, out of the seven-person testing team, five of them have Olympic medals. Ji-min has three.

                “Come to Korea,” she tells him. “I’ll do your paperwork.”

                “Thanks,” he says, “but I don’t think that’s how it works.”

                She takes the straw out of her drink, taps it neatly on the side of her cup, and then flicks it at him. It hits him directly in the forehead. “Barton,” she says, “I am very good at paperwork.”

                Despite every single one of their interactions, Clint’s starting to get the feeling that Ji-min likes him. He grins at her, holds it in place until her eyebrows pull together in what he thinks might be an attempt to fight back an answering smile.

                “Or,” Seo-jun says, thoughtfully, “someone on the team could marry him.”

                “Perfect,” Ji-min says, as she takes the straw out of Seo-jun’s drink and drops it into her own. “Congratulations,” she says, “to both of you.”

                The archers stay for two weeks, and, on the last day, Ji-min and Seo-jun and three of the others talk him into a friendly competition that somehow evolves into them taking shots between rounds of betting on whether or not Clint can hit the target after an increasingly complicated series of stunts.

                Seo-jun gets dizzy after the one that involves three back handsprings and then Clint shooting while still mostly upside down, so they all load up in SI cars and go out for more drinks. Ji-min makes Clint drink one of those colorful cocktails she likes, but no one cares when he switches immediately back to beer after he realizes how easy it would be to knock back four or five of those things in a row.

                It’s a good night. After the bar, they go to another one, and then, around 1am, a bouncer at a club figures out that Clint doesn’t actually have any ID, and Ji-min stands outside with him while they wait for Happy to come pick him up.

                “We could distract them,” Ji-min says, pensively, as she sizes up the nearest bouncer. “Or,” she adds, suddenly eager, “hurt them.”

                “Nah,” Clint says, with a shrug. “They’re just doing their jobs. And I’m kinda tired anyway.”

                “Hm,” she says, still glaring at the man who has maybe eighty pounds on her and looks increasingly uncomfortable under her stare. “But we _could_.”

                “Sure,” Clint says, smiling. “We could.”

                He _likes_ them. He’ll miss them, when they’re gone. He’s got contact details for half the team, and Ji-min keeps handing him paperwork to sign in a language he can’t read. And he thinks, if he wanted, he could meet up with them, later, when he’s better. Not to compete, but he could, maybe, get added on as an assistant or a trainer or something.

                “Don’t shoot for the Americans,” Ji-min says, severely, as a sleek car peels out of traffic and heads their way.

                “Ji-min,” Clint says, “I would never betray my future husband that way.”

                “Good,” Ji-min says. “It would break Seo-jun’s heart.”

                Clint’s thinking of something to say to that, something funny, fake-romantic, and then the car window rolls down, and Tony leans over, eyebrows raised.

                “Oh,” Clint says, “I called Happy.”

                “Yeah,” Tony says, pushing the passenger door open. “I was around. You ready?”

                Ji-min gives Tony a long, appraising look and then tips her head in Clint’s direction with a wolfish grin on her face. “I’ll tell your husband that you won’t be coming back tonight,” she says. And then, horrifyingly, she claps Clint on the shoulder and _winks_ at him, before turning in her impractical heels and stalking towards the bouncer.

                “Shit,” Clint says, clambering into the car so fast that he almost falls in, “let’s get out of here before we see something that gets us subpoenaed.”

                Tony laughs as they pull away, and he laughs again later, when he has to help Clint out of the car. “Damn, Barton,” Tony says, as Clint steadies himself in Tony’s driveway, “what did you let them talk you into?”

                “Well,” Clint says, as he takes careful steps, “I didn’t renounce my citizenship.”

                “Too bad,” Tony says, as he matches pace with him, hovers around him on the stairs like he’s worried Clint’s going to tumble back down them. “Seems like you have a good time.”

                There’s a strange weight to his sentence, a weird look in his eyes. Clint stares at him quizzically for a second, trying to piece it together, but then Tony darts forward and pulls the door open, and Clint’s focus is broken. He lets it go.

 

 

 

                The week after that, Clint thinks about leaving, even talks to JARVIS about job postings in the area and cheap motels, but his plans get derailed when he’s down in the range, working on a few of Tony’s bows. He’s frowning over one of them, trying to figure out what it is about the draw that’s bothering him, and then the elevator dings and Tony steps out of it, tablet in hand.

                “Hey,” Tony says, staring down at the screen. “Did you—oh.”

                Tony fumbles the tablet, damn near drops it, and Clint blinks at him, frozen, caught in an odd moment by the intensity of Tony’s stare.

                “Sorry,” Tony says, dragging his eyes pointedly away from Clint, and it’s at that moment that Clint realizes he’s standing there, like an idiot, like an animal, wiping the sweat off his face with the hem of his shirt.

                “Oh,” Clint says, and tugs the shirt back down so it reaches the top of his pants. “Uh.”

                “No,” Tony says, “you’re fine.”

                He’s _blushing_. Clint’s never actually seen that before. It’s more charming than it should be.

                Tony clears his throat, rocks back on his heels. There’s a questioning look on his face, almost hesitant.

                “You need something?” Clint asks. He assumes Tony came down here for _something_. And, however much Clint might wish the opposite, it probably wasn’t to get an eyeful of Clint’s abs.

                “Right,” Tony says, visibly gathering himself. “Yeah. Did you want to come with me to this thing? It’s a party.” He holds up the tablet and points at some invitation on the screen. It’s far enough away that Clint can’t quite read the text, but it looks fancy, just from the dark slant of the letters and the serious color palate.

                Clint tips his head to the side, thrown. “You’re inviting me to a party?”

                “Well,” Tony says, with a shrug. “Yeah.”

                Clint hesitates. Things have been strange, between him and Tony. They spend time together, a lot more than either one of them seems to plan for, drawn toward each other like neither one of them can manage to stay away. They’ve had a series of odd, strained moments, where Clint can feel the weight of what they used to have, tugging him toward Tony like gravity.

                And he can feel himself making a stupid assumption right now. He can _feel_ it. And, maybe, in the past, he would’ve just left it that way, set himself up to get his hope dashed to pieces, but, if he’s learned anything over the past month or so, he’s learned how important it is to face things head on, get disappointed early so you don’t end up in a hospital, nearly dead, with no one to call.

                “You mean,” Clint says, keeping his voice flat, “as a friend? As a date? What is this?”

                Tony hesitates, but only long enough to gauge the look on Clint’s face. Like, somehow, _Tony’s_ the one who has to worry about rejection. “Yeah,” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets, “a date. If you want.”

                There’s an edge to Tony, something uneasy in his posture, in the look on his face. It doesn’t look like nervousness, but Clint doesn’t know what nervousness would look like on Tony Stark.

                “Yeah,” Clint says. “I—yeah.”

                “Okay,” Tony says, and he grins at him, but there’s still that weird light in his eyes. “That’s—you’re sure?”

                Clint moves toward him. He feels his brow folding up, his mouth pulling down, and he’s not trying to crowd Tony, just trying to figure out his expression, but, as soon as he gets within reaching distance, Tony’s eye go wide, and then he leans in, and he kisses him.

                It’s awkward, at first. Clint’s caught off guard, missed the signal until the very last second.

                Tony’s mouth slips against his, and Clint’s is open, lax, caught right before he could ask a question. Clint makes a soft, startled sound, and then Tony’s hand settles on his hip, warm through the thin cotton of his t-shirt, and he tips his head, changes the angle, runs his tongue curiously along Clint’s lower lip, and all the questions in Clint’s head evaporate.

                He used to spend hours kissing Tony. He remembers, in those first thirty second, exactly why.

                He’s not as shy as he used to be, though. Not as skittish or as uncertain. A minute in, and he’s got Tony pushed back against the wall, nips his way from Tony’s mouth to his neck, and Tony gasps out a breath that is almost a whine, shifts against Clint restlessly, slips his hand under Clint’s shirt and runs his fingers down those muscles he seemed so interested in earlier.

                “Shit,” Tony says, suddenly, as his hand settles over Clint’s ribs. “Wait, I--”

                Clint pulls back, a little fuzzy already, has to blink twice before he can look away from Tony’s mouth. “Hm?”

                “I’ve got a thing,” Tony says, screwing his eyes shut, tightening his jaw. “I’ve got a thing,” he repeats, “in the lab. Time-sensitive. Needs monitoring.”

                It’s a perfectly plausible line. But Tony’s not looking at him when he says it, and Clint knows, somehow, that it isn’t true.

                He’s not an asshole. He’s an idiot, sure, and he can be careless, sometimes, but he’s not an asshole. He steps away immediately, and he doesn’t tell Tony that he doesn’t have to lie to him to get him to stop touching him, but he wants to, because it stings, the idea that Tony thinks he does.

                “Okay,” he says, and now he’s not looking at Tony either. “Better go check on it.”

 

 

 

                The week before the party is tense, and almost lonely. Clint tries to leave twice, but Tony keeps deflecting, keeps putting a new bow in his hands, keeps asking him if he thinks explosive arrows are practical in the field for anyone who isn’t him.

                They don’t kiss again, although Clint catches Tony staring at him, more than once. He doesn’t know what the hell it means. Maybe it just means that one of them has finally grown up enough to know better than to chase after a monumentally bad idea.

                The night of the event, a suit shows up in Clint’s suite that is, allegedly, just something Tony found in a closet somewhere, but Clint can tell as soon as he tries it on that the damn thing was tailored for him.

                “J,” he says, mock-disapprovingly, “have you been sharing my measurements?”

                “Only with the most discreet people I know,” JARVIS says. “Would you like me to get permission before doing so in the future?”

                Clint can’t imagine that there’s much of a future left. He’s getting the cast off tomorrow, and then, after that, he’s out of excuses. He needs to leave.

                “Don’t worry about it, J,” Clint says, as he squints at a video online, trying to figure out the tie.

                Tony fixes it for him, later, on the car ride to the party. He leans over into Clint’s space, face serious, smelling like cologne and whiskey, like someone too expensive to put their hands on Clint. “There,” Tony says, settling back against the seat, smiling at him. “You clean up nice, Barton.”

                Clint guesses maybe that’s true. He hadn’t recognized himself when he’d caught his reflection earlier. He thinks he looks a little like his dad, when he was headed to court. Healthier, sure, and far less permanently pissed off. But he still doesn’t look like someone who belongs in formal wear.

                Tony, in contrast, looks like he was born for this kind of thing.

                “Thanks,” Clint says. He looks out the window, tugs at his sleeves. This doesn’t _feel_ like a date. It doesn’t feel like anything at all. He doesn’t know why Tony said it was, when he could’ve just as easily said it wasn’t.  

                When they get there, Tony puts a glass of wine in his hand, and they spend five minutes talking before Tony introduces him to a serious man in a suit and then promptly disappears. “Whoops,” he says, hand tightening briefly around Clint’s upper arm as he stares across the room at someone else, “gotta go talk shop. Take care of him for a bit, will you, Coulson?”

                The man in the suit blinks, slow and calm, unperturbed, and, after Tony leaves, he fixes a perfectly pleasant smile on Clint, and says, “Stark mentioned you’re an archer.”

                They have a whole conversation about it, which Clint doesn’t expect. As it turns out, Agent Phil Coulson works for something called SHIELD, and they’ve been following SI’s recent archery-related developments with interest.

                “ _Oh_ ,” Clint says, suddenly, five minutes into the conversation, “you kill people.”

                He doesn’t mean to be blunt. It’s just that he hadn’t realized what Phil meant by _field work_ until he also used the words _strategic_ and _covert_.

                Phil blinks again. His smile stays pleasant, takes on notes of patient amusement. “We eliminate threats,” he says, “when necessary.”

                “Holy shit,” Clint says. He throws back his wine, because, in that second, it feels like something he very much needs to do.

                “And what are your thoughts, Mr. Barton,” Phil says, “on the more practical applications of your skills?”

                Clint hesitates. He’s never thought about anything like that. He expects to hate the idea. He has never – not once in his life, not _ever_ – been in a fight that he enjoyed. Barney had fun, sometimes, and his dad sure as hell must have found something about it he liked, considering how often he did it. But Clint’s hated every fight he’s ever had.

                It hasn’t stopped him, though. He knows better than most that some fights have to happen, and, if they don’t happen to you, they’re just going to happen to someone else. Someone smaller, or weaker, or more important. Someone who doesn’t deserve it.

                He can admit that he might have something of a history of making fights happen to him. But it’s not something he ever expected to get a paycheck for. He’s spent most of his life thinking of it as a bad habit.

                “Well,” he says, “honestly, Agent Coulson, I’ve never really thought about it. I’m a circus performer.”

                “You were,” Phil says, with an agreeable nod. “The Amazing Hawkeye,” he adds, which is bizarre and surreal and a bit alarming, because Clint sure as hell never mentioned that. “The world might need its greatest marksman for something a little more pressing than a performance, Mr. Barton.”

                Clint stares at him. He sweeps the room, looking for Tony, and, when his eyes settle back on Phil Coulson, he’s holding a business card his direction.

                “If you’re interested,” Phil says. “Think about it.”

                Clint takes the card. He slides it into the inside pocket of his jacket, right next to the card Tony gave him years ago, and, when he looks up, Phil’s turning away, and Tony’s trotting up, two more glasses of wine in hand, and a man in uniform at his side.

                “Hey, Clint,” Tony says, beaming, “this is Rhodey. James Rhodes, Air Force.”

                “Oh,” Clint says, taking the new glass of wine, shuffling it immediately to his left hand so he can shake Rhodes’ hand. “Hi, I’m Clint. Are you--”

                “Whatever he’s told you,” Rhodey says, long-suffering, “is probably true, except I was wearing more clothes and he was wearing less.”

                “Uh-oh,” Tony says, before Clint can say anything. He’s staring down at his phone like it’s a loaded gun. His expression is far too exaggerated to be genuine. “That’s Pepper. Gotta go.”

                Rhodes raises his eyebrows and watches Tony scuttle away. After a long second, his gaze falls on Clint. “So,” he says, slowly, determinedly. “Tony says---”

                “Okay.” Clint pauses, clears his throat. He does his best to be polite, because James Rhodes seems nice enough. “There are four other people in uniform here,” he says. “How many of them are going to try to recruit me tonight?”

                James takes a sip of the drink in his hand. He smiles, but it’s a wry thing, sympathetic and resigned. “All of them,” he says. “Also, SHIELD’s here, and STRIKE, and I think he even got the CIA to send someone.”

                “What,” Clint says, earnestly, “the _fuck_?”

                “Sorry,” Rhodes says, with a grimace. “I told him you’d figure it out.”

                Clint runs a hand down his face. He takes a breath, and he doesn’t go stomping across the room to yell at Tony, because he’s an adult, and Tony probably meant this as some kind of favor, and, anyway, he’s only recently graduated to walking without crutches; his leg isn’t up to stomping quite yet.

                “Hey.” Rhodes’ voice is quiet, almost wary. “You know he did this because--”

                “Yeah,” Clint says, sharper than he means to. “Thanks. I know exactly why he did this. Thank you.”

                Rhodes’ eyes narrow. He opens his mouth, but Clint can’t stand here and listen to it, can’t stand here and let this happen to him, so he does what he should have done when he woke up in Malibu, weeks and weeks ago. He gets the hell out.

 

 

 

                Happy takes him back to Stark’s mansion, although he isn’t thrilled about it. He keeps asking about Tony, and if Clint’s feeing okay, and if Mr. Stark knows that Clint’s leaving without him, until Clint finally just slumps over in the seat, head in his hands and says, “Happy, I’m sorry, but if you keep talking to me right now, I’m gonna throw myself out of this fucking car, I swear to God.”

                He _likes_ Happy. They talk about sports, and PBS shows. Clint’s been watching some ridiculous period drama because Happy recommended it, and he doesn’t like it all that much, but he likes talking to Happy about it. He likes talking to Happy in general.

                But right now, his head is so Goddamn loud, that if Happy adds one more layer of noise into Clint’s life, he’ll have no choice but to do something stupid and drastic.

                Happy doesn’t, though. He settles into silence, and he doesn’t try to talk until they’re back at Tony’s place, and Clint’s reaching for the door.

                “Mr. Barton,” he says, tentatively, “are you--”

                “It’s just Clint,” he says, as he shoves the door open. “I’m just Clint.” And then he’s out, slamming the door harder than he means to, feeling like an asshole and an idiot and a fuck-up.

                He doesn’t have much to pack, but it takes him awhile to get out of the suit. He has to go slow, because his hands are shaking so hard that he almost rips the fabric when he tries to undo the buttons. He damn near asphyxiates himself with the tie, and he gives up when he gets to the shoes, scuffs the hell out of them because he can’t tolerate spending any more time here, surrounded by things Tony gave him.

                None of the clothes belong to him, but he can’t leave naked, so he picks what he thinks was probably the cheapest pair of jeans and the only t-shirt he can find that doesn’t say “Property of Stark Industries” on it. His hands curl around the purple hoodie, and he holds it for several long seconds, just staring at it in his hands, feeling the weight of it, the softness. And then he throws it across the room, and he leaves.

                “Mr. Barton,” JARVIS says, “where are you going?” He sounds hushed, cautious.

                “I’ve gotta go, J,” Clint says. His voice is wrong. He sounds like his dad, he thinks. He sounds angry, and out of control. “Sorry,” he says, a beat later. He takes a breath, lets it out, clamps his teeth together and tries to slow the pounding of his heart just by thinking at it, really hard, to get its shit together. “I’m sorry, J. I’ve gotta go.”

                “Mr. Barton,” JARVIS says, “your cast--”

                “I’ll take it off myself,” Clint says, as he steps off the elevator. “It’s fine. Everything’s fine, J. You don’t have to worry about me. Tell Tony—tell _Mr. Stark_ that I said thanks. For everything. Try to make it sound nice, okay, J?”

                “I’m sure he’ll do his best,” Tony says, because there he is, standing right there, between Clint and the door. “JARVIS is great at that kind of thing. I get him to pretty up my ‘fuck off’ emails all the time.”

                Clint swallows. He swallows all the anger, and the resentment, and all the stupid, desperate, naive things hammering in his chest. He makes himself say it, because he’ll regret it later, if he doesn’t. “Thanks,” he says. “Thank you. For everything.”

                Tony grimaces like Clint just spat in his face. He’s windblown, too beautiful to be a mess but leaning that direction. “Not even a goodbye?” he asks, after a second. He tips his head to the side and smiles, and it’s a mean, ugly, stunted thing. “Not sure I really deserve that from you twice, Barton.”

                “Fuck you,” Clint says, breathless with the sting of it, and the reflexive anger that follows. There go his plans, all his good intentions. “You can _fuck off-_ ”

                “I would,” Tony says, “but it looks like you’re gonna beat me to it.”

                Clint’s glad he doesn’t have anything in his hands. He’s glad he knew better than to do this at the party. If he had a glass of wine in his hand right now, he’d empty the whole thing in Tony’s face.

                “If you wanted me to leave,” Clint says, struggling to keep his voice even, wanting, desperately, not to sound like his dad ever again, “you could’ve _let me_ do it. I’ve been trying to leave for weeks. You didn’t have to bring in all those people.” He shakes his head, keeps his hands at his sides. “Fuck you, Tony. You didn’t have to do this.”

                Tony rolls his eyes and then gestures sharply over his shoulder. “You want to leave? There’s the door, Barton. If you can’t find it, JARVIS will fucking illuminate the way for you. Just ask.  What’re you waiting for? You want my permission this time?”

                It hurts. More than it should, probably. But there are some hits that land and fester, light up like they’re brand new when the right pressure is applied. It damn near knocks the breath out of Clint.

                “ _You_ left _me_ ,” Clint says. “You left _me_ , you asshole.”

                He has very clear memories of it. He remembers standing in the field, watching that Rolls-Royce drive away. He remembers the way he’d felt, the way Howard had looked at him like he was trash or roadkill, something small and unpleasant, someone else’s problem. He remembers how Tony hadn’t looked back.

                “I didn’t leave _you_ ,” Tony says. He’s yelling now, loud and furious and like nothing Clint’s ever heard from him before. “I left the circus. I left because Dad was gonna buy the whole Goddamn thing and shut it down. I left because I _had to_. And I told you to call me. Why the hell didn’t you ever call me?”

                By the end of it, he doesn’t sound angry anymore. He just sounds hurt and confused, and it catches in Clint’s chest, makes him feel twisted-up and raw.

                “Why the hell _would_ I call you?” Clint sighs, rubs at his face. He wants to be gone. He wants to be twenty miles away from here. A hundred miles, a thousand.

                Tony blinks at him, and there’s something in his eyes that feels worse than anything else has, worse than waking up alone in a hospital, knowing his brother and mentor put him there. Tony’s quiet for a second, with that horrible thing in his eyes, and then he just nods, eyes blanking out, mouth falling into a flat, accepting line.

                “Okay,” he says, quietly. “Alright.”

                “No, what.” Because it’s wrong, whatever’s in Tony’s head. Clint doesn’t know what it is, but he knows that it’s wrong. “I just—I figured it was just some fling. That I was just—you had an adventure, and then you left. That’s it. That’s all it was. Right? Why would you—you’re _Tony Stark_. And I’m…” He trails off, gestures at himself. “I was just something you did one summer.”

                Tony’s eyes dart back toward him. He’s still for a long moment and then he laughs, high and choked-off in the back of his throat. He looks away, stares hard at nothing. “Sure,” he says. “Just some fling.”

                Clint steps toward him. Can’t help it. Tony’s always been some kind of magnetic, and Clint’s been fighting against it for weeks, but it never once stopped pulling.

                “Right?” he asks, because he has to know. He _does_ know. He knew the second Tony left. He knew _before_ Tony left. But there’s some young, stupid, helpless, hopeless part of him that wants to be wrong. “Tony. Right?”

                Tony swallows. He won’t look at Clint. He squints his eyes, works his jaw. “Jesus, Barton,” he says, rough, low. “You broke my fucking heart.”

                Clint stares at him. His stomach drops, keeps falling. “Shit,” he says, soft, disbelieving. “ _Shit_.”

                Tony tips his head toward him. It takes him awhile to lift his eyes from the floor, but then he stands there, braced, staring Clint right in the face. Everything spools out between them, a mess and a wreck, every kind of stupid misunderstanding.

                “I just thought,” Clint says. “When you got back, you’d forget about me. Tony, I’m a fuck-up. I don’t have a driver’s license or a GED or--”

                “Do you know,” Tony says, over him, “that you’re the only person who’s ever just liked me? For no fucking reason, for _nothing_? Without a single clue who I am, or how smart I am, or what I can buy or build for you. You’re the only one. My whole life. It’s just you.”

                “But I said,” Clint says. “I _said_ , if you wanted to go somewhere else, a different circus, whatever. I said I’d go with you. If you didn’t want to leave me, you didn’t have to.”

                “I wasn’t going to ask you to leave everyone you knew,” Tony says. “Christ, Barton. I wasn’t going to ask you to leave your brother.”

                “Oh,” Clint says. He’s quiet for a second, thinking that over. “But I would have.” And it had hurt, in a way he’d thought he was prepared for, when Tony didn’t want him to.

                Tony makes a noise, sad and frustrated. He runs a hand through his hair. “Maybe I should have,” he says. “Since your brother turned out to be such a fucking prick.”

                Clint blinks. “What,” he says. “How do you know--- what does that mean?”

                Tony stares at him. “Clint,” he says, “everyone at the circus knows what happened.”

                Clint shakes his head, tries to catch up. “They—what? Everyone—what? How do you know what they think?”

                “Because I _asked_ ,” he says. “I found them. They were going to press charges, for all that money that went missing. So, I went out there. I figured out that your brother and Jacques were trying to pin the whole thing on you.”

                “And you did _what_?” Clint asks, because he has, noticeably, not been charged with a damn thing.

                Tony pauses. After a second, he shrugs. “I settled things,” he says. He rolls his eyes at the face Clint makes. “And I settled those medical bills in Virginia, too, so, if you’re gonna yell, let’s just get both out of the way.”

                “Will you _stop_?” Clint says, and he’s not yelling, but only because he’s contrary, to his core, when he feels like it’s the only thing he has left. “Will you _stop_ paying for everything? And trying to give me to the South Korean Olympic archery team, and SHIELD, and the Air Force, and—will you just fucking stop trying to fix my life? I never asked you for any of this.”

                “I know,” Tony says, hands held up and out, like _Who, me?_ “I didn’t do it because I thought you wanted me to. Not after you woke up and tried to kick yourself out. I thought—at first, I just figured you were doing what everyone always does. And then you weren’t, and so I did all this shit anyway, because I’m fucking hopeless. Because I can’t stop caring about you, even if you stopped caring about me.”

                “I didn’t,” Clint says. It’s the truth. It’s never not been true. He just thought it stopped mattering. “Tony, you’re not the kind of person anyone ever gets over.”

                Tony startles, grimaces like he’s been hit. “That’s cruel,” he says. “Don’t do that. You’ve never done that.”

                “I’m not,” Clint says, stepping closer to him. “Tony, c’mon,” he says. “You know I’m not. I told you. I’m just an idiot.”

                Tony takes a breath. His eyes drop to Clint’s mouth. “Stop saying that,” he says. “I told you to stop calling yourself that.”

                “I am,” Clint says, earnestly. “I’m stupid, and I’m sorry. I’m a fucking idiot, and I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just thought you didn’t care, thought you were better off without me. I’m _stupid_ , Tony, come on--”

                Tony kisses him, hard, hands curling tight in his shirt, pulling him the rest of the way in until they’re pressed so tightly together that Clint can feel him everywhere. “Stop _saying_ that,” Tony says.

                “I didn’t mean it,” Clint says, because, sure, he’s been an idiot his whole life, but he’s never, ever been the kind of idiot who hurts people who don’t deserve it. He’s been proud of that. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Tony. I didn’t know.”

                “Yeah,” Tony says, pulling back to look at him, mouth curled up, small and crooked, sad, hopeful. “I’m starting to realize we’re bad at communicating.”

                “Just don’t leave again,” Clint says, because that’s where they went wrong, that’s where he got confused. He’s steady as anything, as long as he doesn’t think he’s being pushed away. “Just don’t do that again.”

                “I’ll get it in my head,” Tony tells him, “that you want me to.”

                “Okay,” Clint says, because that’s fine. That’s workable. “I’ll just tell you every day that I don’t.”

                Tony closes his eyes. He tips his head back, takes a deep breath. Clint leans in, presses a kiss to the side of his mouth. Can’t help himself, now that he knows he’s allowed.

                “Fuck, Tony,” Clint says, mouth pressed over the pulse point on Tony’s throat, “I missed you for three years.”

                Tony opens his eye and smiles at him. It’s sweet and sharp, bright like it used to be, but not quite as manic. “We’re both idiots,” he says. From his mouth, it’s some kind of compliment, a benediction.

                “Well,” Clint says, still cautious, getting less and less so every second. “Guess we should stick together, then. Look after each other.”

                “Yeah,” Tony says. His smile tilts up brighter, could light up every single bulb in the circus, every house on the West Coast. “Guess so.”

                Clint looks at his smile, lets it settle in his mind, lets it ease some of the jagged edges between them, the walls he raised, trying to keep Tony out. He smiles back, and Tony laughs, and then Clint fits hits mouth over Tony’s, takes some of that lightning bolt smile for himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annndddd that is the end of what was originally going to be a 2-3k one-shot. I'm excellent at being concise. Thanks everyone for reading!
> 
> For fic updates, crow gifs, and mild existential angst, follow me [on tumblr](https://thepartyresponsible.tumblr.com/).


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